Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/77

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XIII.]
XENOPHON OF CORINTH.
47

Then the seer bade him with all speed obey the vision, and that, when he should have sacrificed to the wide-ruling Earth-enfolder the strong-foot beast[1], he should build an altar straightway to Athene, queen of steeds.

Now the power of Gods bringeth easily to pass such things as make forecast forsworn. Surely with zealous haste did bold Bellerophon bind round the winged steed's jaw the softening charm, and make him his: then straightway he flew up and disported him in his brazen arms.

In company with that horse also on a time, from out of the bosom of the chill and desert air, he smote the archer host of Amazons, and slew the Solymoi, and Chimaira breathing fire, I will keep silence touching the fate of him: howbeit Pegasos hath in Olympus found a home in the ancient stalls of Zeus.

But for me who am to hurl straight the whirling javelin it is not meet to spend beside the mark my store of darts with utmost force of hand: for to the Muses throned in splendour and to the Oligaithidai a willing ally came I, at the Isthmos and again at Nemea. In a brief word will I proclaim the host of them, and a witness sworn and true shall be to me in the sweet-tongued voice of the good herald[2], heard at both places sixty times.

Now have their acts at Olympia, methinks, been told already: of those that shall be hereafter I will hereafter clearly speak. Now I live in hope, but the end is in the hands of gods. But if the fortune of the house fail not, we will commit to Zeus and Enyalios the accomplishment thereof.

Yet other glories won they, by Parnassos' brow, and at Argos how many and at Thebes, and such as nigh the Arcadians[3] the lordly altar of Zeus Lykaios shall attest, and Pallene, and Sikyon, and Megara, and the well-fenced grove of the Aiakidai, and


  1. A bull.
  2. Proclaiming the name and city of the winner in the games.
  3. Reading Ἀρκάσιν ἆσσον.